XING 2014: Quarterly revenue growth

• Total revenues increase by 20% to €101.4 million, E-Recruiting revenues by 39%
• Strongest member growth since IPO with 1.1 million new registrations
• Executive Board proposes dividend increase of 48% to €0.92 per share

Hamburg, 20 February 2015 – XING AG, the leading business network in German-speaking countries, has published its preliminary results for the fiscal year 2014. According to these preliminary and thus unaudited and unapproved results, total revenues for 2014 increased by 20% to €101.4 million. Key drivers for this effect were the Network/Premium and E-Recruiting segments. Total revenues increase by 20% to €101.4 million, E-Recruiting revenues by 39%
The Premium customer business was again XING AG’s main source of revenues during 2014. Last year’s major overhaul of the Premium offering, which saw the addition and expansion of Premium perks from high-end partners, has proven highly successful. Revenues for the Network/Premium segment increased by 12% from €54.7 million in 2013 to €61.3 million in 2014. As a result, XING doubled its growth levels in this segment when compared to the previous year (+6%). The main growth driver was again the E-Recruiting segment which saw a 39% increase in revenues to €32.9 million. E-Recruiting also saw a number of new offerings rolled out during 2014, with one such highlight being the relaunch of XING Jobs in autumn 2014. In doing so, XING made all of its job ads available to non-XING members for the first time ever so employers can target a much larger potential audience than before, while professionals benefit from access to job offers without being XING members. The Events segment reported revenues of €5.1 million, a slight increase of 3% compared to 2013 (€4.9 million). Due to changes in market conditions, the Company decided to completely impair its stake in XING Events GmbH. This impairment had a negative impact of €8.1 million on XING AG’s annual accounts and of €7.1 million on XING AG’s IFRS consolidated group financial statements. The impairment has no cash effect and does neither affect the strategy nor the long-term outlook of the XING group. XING will continue to further drive its events strategy shift to focus more on the B2C market. The events business no longer just focuses on event marketers; it now also extends to acquiring new XING members and rendering dedicated services for end customers such as customised event recommendations. XING’s EBITDA excluding kununu earn-outs rose by 30% from €24.3 million in 2013 to €31.6 million in 2014. Net income for the 2014 financial year excluding kununu earn-outs and the XING Events impairment amounted to €15.7 million, an increase of 49% compared to 2013 (€10.5 million). The earnings per share adjusted for the above effects also increased significantly in 2014 from €1.90 to €2.81 (+48%). Strongest member growth since IPO with 1.1 million new registrations
During the 2014 financial year XING welcomed 1.1 million new members. This is the strongest member growth since the Company’s IPO in 2006. As a result of this growth, XING had more than 8 million members in German-speaking countries as of the end of 2014, with total user numbers increasing to over 8.3 million. Thomas Vollmoeller, CEO at XING AG, said: “2014 was a year of growth for XING and our revenues increased with every quarter. We revitalised our Premium business, where growth levels doubled compared to the previous year. Member growth has reached record levels, which shows that our strategic initiatives are paying off. All the signs point to future growth here at XING.” One of last year’s core initiatives was the jobs offensive. This started off with a relaunch of XING Jobs to serve job ads by criteria that are crucial to today’s world of work but can’t be found on conventional job portals. Jobseekers can, for example, browse and look for job ads from companies offering family-friendly working conditions or social and environmental expertise. In mid-October XING launched ProJobs, a new add-on allowing XING members to be found more easily by headhunters. This is because the ProJobs add-on makes them more prominent among the over 3,000 top recruiters on XING who use the XING Talent Manager to identify and contact potential job applicants. The extended profile with additional self-portrayal options not only lets ProJobs users present themselves to employers in the best-possible light, it also lets them choose who can see their extended profile details and that they are looking for a job, thus ensuring the necessary level of discretion. Another highlight is that members with the ProJobs add-on gain exclusive access to headhunter job offering annual salaries of €50,000 or more. In January 2015 XING continued its jobs offensive by acquiring Jobbörse.com, the leading jobs search engine in German-speaking countries with more than 2.5 million job ads. In doing so, XING also gained access to the portal’s underlying search technology, which currently searches around 15 million domains, including more than 1.5 million corporate sites. XING is planning to integrate Jobbörse.com’s technology and job ads into its services and platforms during the course of 2015. Executive Board proposes dividend increase of 48% to €0.92 per share
During the course of preparing its annual financial statements, the XING Executive Board unanimously resolved at its meeting held on 20 February 2015 to propose to the Supervisory Board a 48% regular dividend increase compared to the previous year. A total of around €5.1 million or €0.92 per share is proposed to be paid out to XING AG shareholders. The audited and approved figures and Annual Report for the 2014 financial year are due to be published on 25 March 2015. About XING
XING is the social network for business contacts. XING has around 8.3 million users in its core German-speaking market, more than 8 million of whom are XING platform members. XING is a platform where professionals from all kinds of different industries can meet up, find jobs, colleagues, new assignments, cooperation partners, experts and generate business ideas. Members can meet and exchange views in over 66,000 specialist groups, while also getting together at networking events. The platform is operated by XING AG, which was founded in Hamburg, Germany, in 2003, has been publicly listed since 2006, and listed on the TecDAX since September 2011. In December 2010, XING acquired amiando AG, a Munich-based company and Europe’s leading provider of online event management and ticketing. Since the end of 2013 the company has been trading under the name XING EVENTS GmbH. The acquisition of kununu, the leading platform for employer reviews in German-speaking countries, allows XING to extend its position as the social recruiting market leader. At the start of 2015 XING also acquired Intelligence Competence Center AG, including its Jobbörse.com website which is the largest jobs search engine in German-speaking countries with over 2.5 million jobs. Visit www.xing.com for further details.